English is the third most spoken language in the world with 370 million native speakers and 978 million people who speak it as a second language.
English is also the lingua franca (a language that is adopted as a common language among speakers whose native languages are different) of business, travel and international relations.
Are you ready to learn interesting and Fun Facts about the English language?
Here we go...
1. Have you ever wondered what's the language with the most words?
According to the Oxford Dictionary and its contents, the English language is the largest in the number of words it possesses and due to its adoption as a universal language in all areas of knowledge and science.
There are three key numbers to remember: more than a million total words, about 170,000 words in current use, and 20,000-30,000 words used by each individual person.
2. Did you know that Shakespeare invented over 1,000 words that are still used in everyday speech by English speakers?
Some of the words and phrases invented by Shakespeare are
addiction - assassination - bedazzled - belongings - cold-blooded -dishearten -eventful - eyeball - fashionable - hot-blooded - inaudible - ladybird - manager - pageantry - swagger - break the ice - all that glitters is not gold - come what may - for goodness' sake - laughing stock - too much of a good thing
Have you ever noticed that whenever you download a font you have the sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" as a sample. It's because that this sentence is a pangram and it contains all the letters of the English language.
5. A crutch word is any meaningless sound, word, or phrase used during a speech to give us more time to think and fill the silence.
Common examples include uh, um, er, ah, okay, like, right, so, actually, absolutely, literally, seriously, honestly, you know, I mean and so on.
They're often used in lieu of pausing and are closely connected with hesitation in speech.
